Brainwashing in Scientology's Rehabilitation Force (RPF) -
Part 3

by Dr. Stephen A. Kent

E. Sleeping Conditions

Beyond these real and immediate issues related to hygiene and medical care,
many people spoke about issues related to sleep. They complained (in retrospect)
about their sleeping conditions--the conditions of the mattresses; ventilation
in the rooms; crowded conditions; and inappropriate sleeping areas. From
different times and different locations, people spoke about the deplorable
condition of the mattresses on which they had to sleep. Remembering the
circumstances for sleeping on the Apollo, Dale recounted that "we were
given mattresses but the mattresses we were given were old, filthy mattresses
that... had to be cleaned up.... A lot of them smelled..." (Kent Interview
with Dale, 1997: 6). Reflecting on her period of grueling work shifts, Pat
recalled that "when our thirty hours were up we'd get to sleep. We would go
to the roof of one of the buildings where it was cold and there were these damp,
disgusting mattresses that we would just fall onto and sleep" (Kent
Interview with Pat, 1997a: 26).

Mattresses frequently rested either on the ground or the floor. When, for
example, Robert Vaughn Young was in isolation in a converted chicken coop on the
Gilman Hot Springs property, he indicated that "there were some old
mattresses that g[o]t thrown down on the floor. You know, you talk about a crash
pad..." (Kent Interview with Young, 1994: 20; see A. Tabayoyon, 1994: 9
[para. # 35]). Adelle Hartwell was at one of the Indio facilities at the same
time that her daughter was there in the RPF. Someone in charge of the RPF
(presumably) put the mattresses of the RPF people outside, and around the same
time the daughter fell ill. "During the heat of the day I would see her
moving her mattress from one shady spot to another to try and keep out of the
blazing sun and 115 degree heat. I have never seen illness treated this way"
(Hartwell, n.d.: 3). Like the sick daughter, Vicki Aznaran may have meant that
her mattress was not on a frame when she stated that she and others were made to
"sleep on the ground" (Aznaran and Aznaran, 1988: 11). Certainly
accounts from the Fort Harrison RPF indicated that people slept on mattresses
strewn on the floor, usually in cramped, poorly ventilated rooms (Armstrong,
1982: 3; Nefertiti, 1997: 12; Rosenblum, n. d.: 3; Whitfield, 1989: 5).
Ventilation was so bad the first time that Monica Pignotti was on the Apollo's
RPF that "we slept out on the decks on towels because it was so stuffy down
there [in the RPF] and it was really horrendous conditions..." (Kent
Interview with Pignotti, 1997: 18).

Even when RPF members had beds or bunks, significant problems remained.
While in an RPF program on a ship, "Wollersheim and others were forced to
sleep in the ship's hold. A total of thirty people were stacked nine high in
the hold without proper ventilation" (California Court of Appeal, 1989:
9274). At the Fort Harrison, Dennis Erlich and other RPF inmates slept in bunks
on the third floor of the outdoor parking structure that adjoins the hotel, so
they inhaled exhaust fumes from cars (Kent Interview with Erlich, 1997: 3).
Apparently the women's sleeping facilities were nearby, because Anne Rosenblum
wrote that:

[i]n December, 1978, we were moved to a storage area in the
garage. It was a partly wooden, partly cement, enclosure built against one of
the garage walls. It was built to be a storage area, but as the RPF grew so
large, it was made the RPF's girl's sleeping area. Wooden bunks were built,
that were about 1/2 to 1/3 the size of a regular twin bed. The bunks were built
3 and 4 stacks high, and were put in there side-by-side. Our 'mattresses' were
pieces of foam cut to fit the bunks. It was like crawling into a hole to get
into bed. You couldn't even sit up because of the bunk above you, and it was
difficult to try to turn over because they weren't wide enough. The worst
problem was that being in the garage, we inhaled all the car fumes when cars
would go through, in addition to the noise of cars that [people taking
courses] and staff would make driving in and out (Rosenblum, n. d.: 3).

It seems remarkable that health, zoning, or safety inspectors never discovered
these inappropriate sleeping quarters at the Fort Harrison, but Hana Whitfield
explained that "all RPFers were practiced and skilled in transforming their
normal RPF sleeping areas into what looked like a regular furniture storage
space, and doing so in a very short period of time " (Whitfield, 1989:
6).

3. Social Maltreatment

A. Boiler Suits; Formal Address to "Superiors;" Armbands

The line between physical maltreatment and social maltreatment was not always
clear, yet certain activities involving such occurrences as degradations,
restrictions in verbal and written communication, and very low pay seem
distinctive enough to warrant mention. RPF degradations were many. They included
having to wear jumpsuits or boiler suits (Kent Interview with Pat, 1997: 22;
Kent Interview with Young, 1994: 18; Superior Court of the State of California,
1984: 1432; Whitfield, 1989: 5), and having to refer to everyone as "sir,"
(Rosenblum, n. d.: 2; Whitfield, 1989: 5), and RPFers were prohibited from
walking -- running only (Rosenblum, n. d.: 1). By the late 1980s, different
coloured arm bands -- including white and gold -- visually identified people's
progress through the RPF program (Schernekau/Elleby, 1990a). According to
former RPFer Jess Prince, people in the RPF's RPF in the late 1970s wore black
strips of cloth on their arms (Kent Interview with Prince, 1998: 18). By
(presumably) the late 1980s and the early 1990s, people on the RPF's RPF
reportedly wore orange arm bands; new RPFers wore black arm bands; RPFers who
had a few "privileges" (such as having dinner with family members)
wore white bands; and persons who could sleep with their spouses one night a
week displayed gold arm bands (SB, 1998b: 1).

B. Restrictions on Speaking and Writing

Many people indicated that their ability to communicate with others was
severely curtailed, although they expressed the restrictions with slightly
different emphases. Dale seemed to capture the basic restriction when he
informed me that "[y[ou could not talk to anybody [who] was not on the RPF
unless you were spoken to..." (Kent Interview with Dale, 1997: 5; see Kent
Interview with Pat, 1997a: 23). Englishman Peter Ford stated that someone on the
RPF was "allowed to speak with only 1 person at all (the MAA [or
Master-at-Arms]," who directly oversaw the program (Ford, n. d.: 3; see
Pignotti, 1989: 24). Julie Mayo insisted that she "was not allowed to talk
to the rest of the staff or even make a phone call" (J. Mayo, 1996: 8).

These restrictions on communicating included one's mail and telephone calls.
Gerry Armstrong's accounts of RPF surveillance and communication censureship
were amplified by Robert Vaughn Young, who wrote on the internet that he
underwent interrogations over the contents of letters exchanged with his wife
while he was incarcerated in the RPF program (Armstrong in Young, 1997: 1-2; see
S. Young, 1994: 29). In an affidavit, David Mayo swore that "I was not
permitted to make or receive phone calls and all letters I wrote were read by
Scientology security guards" (Mayo 1994: 3). Dramatically, Nefertiti
recounted meeting a woman on the RPF's RPF who was there because "she had
sent a letter to her husband--[a] member of the cult[--] revealing some details
about the RPF. One is not supposed to talk about the gulag. She had violated the
gulag's law of silence" (Nefertiti, 1997: 4).

C. Media and Book Restrictions

Communication restrictions extended to include the media. While on the RPF,
people were not allowed to listen to the radio, watch television, or read
magazines and newspapers (Kent Interview with Pat, 1997: 23; Rosenblum, n. d.:
2). These restrictions probably were based upon the written policy that people
"[m]ay not have with them in the RPF ANY drugs or alcoholic
beverages, radios, TV, taped music, musical instruments, chess games or any such
entertainment or luxury, or consume such when on authorized visits to spouse or
child" (Boards of Directors of the Churches of Scientology, 1977: 11).
Consequently, when the RPF Master-at-Arms (MAA) found two novels in Susanne
Schernekau/Elleby's handbag, she found herself assigned to Scientology's "ethics
conditions" doing "amends" for having committed a supposedly
serious infraction of rules. The harsh reaction that she experienced from
possessing two novels, and her own acceptance that her possession of them
constituted a serious violation against RPF policies, provides an important
window into the totalism of the RPF program. The program demanded the right to
oversee totalistic control over RPF inmates, and the inmates felt extreme
pressure to accept such restrictive control as a valid part of their "rehabilitative"
program.

Apparently, the RPF MAA went through Schernekau/Elleby's belongings, since
Schernekau/Elleby wrote a letter (probably on or around October 1, 1990) to him
about what he found:

Dear Sir, it is true that there were 2 books in my handbag.

The only reason they were there is the following: when I arrived to [sic]
the RPF I had my songbook in my jeans jacket pocket as I always ha[d] it with me
and these two novels are the best ones I have and they were always with me --
either in the white bag and when that broke I moved them to the black handbag.

As I told [the RPF Bosun] last night -- it can sound like a justification to
avoid any trouble but it is the truth.

That I am doing [ethics] conditions [i.e., reparation for policy violations]
is just because I knew it is out-FO [i.e., against Flag Orders to [sic:
in] the RPF and I want for my self to ensure it is cleared up fully
(Schernekau/Elleby, n.d.).

Clearly Schernekau/Elleby did not question the prohibition against
possessing novels while on the RPF, since she accepted that her discovery caused
an ethics situation that had to be "cleaned up." As she began working
through the "ethics conditions," she accepted blame for having the
material. In her October 1, 1990 "Condition write-up of Treason"
(with 'treason' as the lowest level of ethics conditions), Schernekau/Elleby
reported:

Tonight the MAA found 2 books in my bag[,] which is out FO
[against Flag Orders and against LRH's [Hubbard's] intention with
retraining S.O. [Sea Org] members.

Addressing the standard command that all people on the level of treason had
to answer, "Find out that you are," Schernekau wrote:

I got the RF [routing form] from the [S]ection i/c [i.e., the
lowest level RPF supervisor] that the MAA had found 2 books in my bag and that
there also were [sic] the songbook in my jacket. I went ahead justifying the
cycle [i.e., the concluded books-discovery event] but looking at it I see that
it was contrary to RPF FO's [Flag Orders] and is not speeding up
redemption and graduation. (I have not been reading them. I just had them
there as they are my favorites and I didn't want to loose them[.])

I am a[n] RPF member who really wants to speed up and get thru the program
-- in ethics and in FO with only that intention (Schernekau/Elleby, 1990d).

Already contrite, Schernekau/Elleby admitted that she had two novels but
attempted to minimize the 'seriousness' of her infraction by insisting that she
never read them.

In her "Condition of Doubt" write-up that she did the next day
(October 2), Schernekau/Elleby stated about the books incident that she took "an
honest look to [sic: at] the situation and I saw that the intention and the
objectives were to keep self determin[ed?] protection on [sic; of] my mest
[i.e., her material possessions]." She determined that this attempt to
protect her material possessions "is endangering the group over all"
(Schernekau/Elleby, 1990f: 1). She revealed the absolute rigidity with which
people had to follow the RPF rules by adding, "I join the RPFers who really
study the RPF FO's w[ith] no MU's [i.e., misunderstood words] and who keeps them
in as they are and who does not add to them personal ideas and feelings"
(Schernekau/Elleby, 1990f: 2). In plain language, Schernekau/Elleby wanted to
be counted among the RPF inmates who completely understood the RPF policies and
who followed them precisely -- without feelings and without expressing her
personal feelings about them. Clearly she understood the absolute obedience
that the program demanded of her, and she responded accordingly.

By the time that Schernekau/Elleby wrote the next report on her upgraded
ethic status of "liability" for having been caught with two novels
(and a song book), she confessed, "I have committed a severe out FO [i.e.,
violation of a Flag Order and I want to ensure that it's fully handled."
As part of her efforts to fully handle it, she studied six Flag Orders
about the RPF, and by doing so realized what core mistake she had made that
(allegedly) led to the infraction (Schernekau/Elleby, 1990g: 1). She then "went
with the FO [Flag Order] to my room and I took out anything which could
be questionable w[h]ether or not out FO's [i.e., that might have violated an RPF
restriction stated in an Flag Order], and I get them carried up to the
attic." To further demonstrate how sincere she was in her efforts to
conform, she mentioned what appears to be a self-inflicted punishment: "I
did 8 laps" (Schernekau/Elleby, 1990g: 2). When she discovered something
going on inside the RPF that was against a Flag Order policy, she
reported it to her superiors, Finally, in an act that confirmed the extent to
which she now placed the RPF above herself, she indicated, "I wrote a KR
[knowledge report] on myself re: the things which could be questionable which I
located in my room" (Schernekau/Elleby, 1990g: 2). One interpretation
about this entire incident is that RPF staff used a small expression of
Schernekau/Elleby's individuality as an opportunity to attempt to rebuild her
into a compliant, de-individualized person who reflected the organization's
ideological totalism.

D. Salaries

For all of the deprivations that RPF members suffered, they still received
almost no salary. During his 1977 period in the RPF, for example, Armstrong
indicated that he received about $4.30 a week for a hundred or more hours work
(Superior Court of the State of California, 1984: 1463). Likewise, "[i]n
the RPF," Robert Vaughn Young revealed, "I got paid five dollars a
week for fourteen months" (Kent Interview with Young, 1994: 24), which was
the same amount the Pignotti collected (Kent Interview with Pignotti, 1997: 17).
Anne Rosenblum only got $4.00 a week (Rosenblum, n. d.: 3). While in the Cedars
Sinai RPF in 1977 and 1978 for eighteen months, Jesse Prince never received
more (he said) than about $7.00 (and sometimes nothing) for working perhaps a
hundred hours a week. After he returned, however, to Sea Org duties, he
received back pay totalling nearly $3,000.00 (Kent Interview with Prince, 1998:
32, 36).

4. Intensive Study of Ideology

When neither punishments nor pressing work assignments interfered with study
time, RPF inmates spent up to five hours a day studying Scientology doctrines
and participating in numerous auditing and security checking sessions. Each
person worked with a co-auditor, and one had to complete the RPF's auditing
course as well as successfully audit one's partner through it (Rosenblum, n. d.:
2). It seems likely that the purpose of this intense study was to infuse the
person with Hubbard's teaching at the same time that an other aspect of the RPF
was operating-- forced confessions. That is to say, as one was studying what
Scientology considers to be the uncompromising truth, he or she also was
receiving continuous messages (through the forced confessions) that the
individual was weak, guilty, and completely dependent upon the leader's
doctrines for salvation (see Kent, 1994).

The required study items and auditing actions became highly structured, with
a 1980 checklist of "RPF Graduation Requirements" listing seven pages
of courses, readings, educational demonstrations, essays, auditing, and
confessions that inmates had to complete successfully in order to "graduate"
from the program (Boards of Directors of the Churches of Scientology, 1980:
1-7). The checklist for just one course, for example, required that RPF inmates
read ninety-two Hubbard bulletins, orders, and miscellaneous writings; perform
ten demonstrations of concepts; listen to six tapes; perform twenty- six drills;
write two essays; participate in ten hours of auditing; plus complete three
additional auditing assignments (Board of Directors of the Churches of
Scientology, 1974).

5. Forced Confessions

An intimate aspect of the ideological re-exposure, therefore, involved RPF
inmates repeatedly confessing to alleged sins, crimes, and evil intentions (see
Kent Interview with Dale, 1977: 9). According to Monica Pignotti, these forced
confessions took two forms. First, while "on" the e-meter:

[t]hey had prepared lists that they called security checks
where they would ask you all kinds of questions on every possible thing a
person could have done wrong--any possible thing you could think of in your life
or... against the organization. 'Have you ever stolen anything? Have you ever
had any unkind thoughts about L. Ron Hubbard? About Mary Sue Hubbard? About
Scientology?.... Have you ever committed murder?' Just a whole list where
anything [might] read on the e-meter. And the auditor would say, 'What are you
thinking of right now?' and you would have to answer the question until... the
meter didn't read anymore...

[T]he other one that they did a lot of was repetitive commands: 'What have
you done? what have you withheld? What have you done? What have you...' it was
said over and over and over (Kent Interview with Pignotti, 1997: 15; see Supreme
Court of the State of California, 1984: 1487-1490, see 2545-2546).

An important practical distinction between auditing and sec-checking is that
Scientology does not consider information revealed in sec-checks to be
confidential material (as auditing information is supposed to be). Consequently,
RPF inmates likely realized that this information could be used against them at
some future time.11 At least two people, however, who had been
though the RPF stated that people on or associated with the RPF were in fact
culling people's auditing (or 'pc' or 'pre-clear') files for crimes that people
had to address (Kent Interview with Pat, 1997: 29; Supreme Court of the State of
California, 1984: 2714; Whitfield, 1998: 1).).

Sec-checking could, and often did, become very intense and unnerving. Before
high-ranking Scientology leaders sent Stacy Young to the RPF, they subjected her
to what is called a "gang-bang sec check" involving two or more people
angrily and quickly firing questions at someone in an attempt to break down the
person emotionally:

Two very large, strong men..., locked me in a room and
interrogated me for hours, During the interrogation, they screamed and
swore at me. They accused me of all sorts of crimes against Scientology.
They demanded that I confess to being an enemy agent (S. Young, 1994: 28).

Julie Mayo appears to have experienced gang-bang sec checks, but after she
already was in the RPF program. RPF staff pulled in Julie and fifteen other
people late one night, and sat her:

opposite from the three who faced me. I was told that unless I
confessed to working for the IRS, the FBI, or other government agency, I
was going to: A) be sent to jail; B) lose my eternity; C) be banned from
[Scientology] tech[nology] lines forever. When I said [that] I didn't work
for a government agency, I was told that they might go lighter on me if I
confessed to supplying [a person] with a mailing list. I said [that] I hadn't
done that either, so [I] was told to go think about it and write my confession
(J. Mayo, 1996: 7).

Presumably her husband, David, also went through similar grillings, since he
indicated that "I was often awakened during the night and interrogated..."
(D. Mayo, 1994: 3). These intense situations around forced confessions appear
to differ greatly from the experience (and interpretation) of Scientologist and
former RPFer "SB," who indicated, "[t]he idea of 'forced'
[confessions] bring to mind 'involuntary' and 'pressured'. Some people may have
felt that way, but it really wasn't the case normally" (SB, 1998g: 1).

6. Success Stories

For inmates attempting to complete the program, among the final, obligatory
activities that they must do is write success stories about how the RPF
transformed their lives. For years prior to the RPF program, Hubbard had in
place an organizational requirement that Scientologists were required to provide
glowing accounts of Scientology's benefits, so the requirement that inmates had
to produce them about the RPF merely was following policy. With public relations
in mind, Hubbard wrote in 1968:

[f]or purposes of distribution of Scientology and
getting it into the hands of the millions, standard tech producing
results and being broadcast by word of mouth by pcs [pre-clears -- people below
a certain level of courses] and students is one of the best programmes. People
who have not had the results or wins are not likely to assist distribution and
indeed are a liability (Hubbard, 1968: 140 [emphasis in original]).

Hubbard also realized that "win" stories provided invaluable
information about how people felt concerning their Scientology experiences, so
he wrote that "Success is the final police point of an org. All
[s]tudents and pcs must go to Success before leaving an org even on a "leave
of absence" (Hubbard, 1968: 140 [emphasis in original]). Success stories
about RPF "wins," therefore, simply followed policy, and they also may
have provided some protection in the future if former RPFers became critical of
their incarceration in the program.

Far less extensive in content or design than the final confessions that
Chinese and Western victims of thought reform programs had to write for their "re-educators"
in the late 1940s and early 1950s (see Lifton, 1961: 266-273, 473-484), the RPF
success stories nevertheless appeared to follow an outline or formula. In them,
"graduating" RPFers had to acknowledge their alleged previous
deficiencies that justified their RPF assignments, praise the quality of
Scientology instruction and training that they have received in the RPF,
identify how this instruction and training combined with other aspects of the
RPF to positively transform their lives, and thank Hubbard and the organization
for their RPF experiences.

A published RPF "success" story from March, 1977, illustrates the
formula. A person identified only as "B.G. proclaimed that:

[t]he RPF is the most fantastic process LRH [L.Ron Hubbard]
has yet devised. It's pure, no holds barred Scientology. And it's for real.
When I walked in the door here several months ago the only thing I knew for
certain was that there was no hope. I had totally and utterly betrayed LRH and
all SO [Sea Org] [m]embers and Scientologists everywhere. And in so doing
[I] had sold my future down the drain.

..... I found that, as an RPFer I had only two possible
courses of action--Win, or die in the attempt, and I had 50 or so tough,
dedicated, confront anything fellows making sure I didn't die. While I've
been here I've received the best auditing and training I've ever had....

I'm about to graduate now. The greatest single win I've ever
had in my existence I got right here. I know [that] Scientology works. I have
total certainty on my ability to handle myself and others and on other's ability
to handle me and others using LRH's Tech. And I know that the RPF is where it
all comes together. It's where the RPF makes it and that's something. Thanks to
LRH I have a future--and a damn bright one too! (Sea Organization, 1977: [5]).

Having followed the formula--(acknowledging pre-RPF crisis, praising RPF
training and techniques, glorifying Hubbard, and claiming a successful
completion of the program), this person probably was released from the RPF
within a matter of days.

Children and Teens on the RPF

Numerous indicators point to the probability that teenagers and pre-teens
are subject to the RPF program. These indicators include: accounts from several
former adult members; an internal Scientology document that refers to a
children's RPF program; a reporter's account in a newspaper article; and
television footage that apparently shows teenagers on the RPF program in Los
Angeles unloading from a bus.

1. Accounts About Children and Teens from Former Adult Members

Two adults who had been in the RPF on the Apollo reported that they
knew of a pre-teen who was in the program. Monica Pignotti stated that a twelve
year old girl was in the RPF during the same time that she was (Kent Interview
with Pignotti, 1997: 30). Likewise, Dale related that he saw an eleven-year old
girl (whom he knew) on the Apollo's RPF after he himself had been in it
(Kent Interview with Dale, 1997: 4). An additional account of a child on the
RPF came from Pat, who insisted that she knew a six-year-old (whom she named)
who went into the program in Los Angeles because he was "out 2-D" --
Scientology's term for either sexual problems or family difficulties (Kent
Interview with Pat, 1997a: 32). Finally, a former Sea-Org member who uses the
pseudonym "Steve Jebson" posted on the alt.religion.scientology
newsgroup that he had "personal knowledge" about a twelve or thirteen
year old boy being assigned to the RPF's RPF in Los Angeles (Jebson, 1997).

2. References to Children on the RPF in a Scientology Document

This testimonial evidence identifies that children and teenagers were in
various RPF programs with adults. An internal Scientology document, however,
indicates that Hubbard had established a special RPF for children and subsequent
Scientologists in leadership positions reinitiated the program (presumably after
it had lapsed for some reason). The available document is a poor-quality
photocopy written by Nedra Cohee in 1989, who was working with the program for
Sea Org children called the Cadet Org. Cohee's stated purpose for producing the
letter was that s/he felt the "need to re-institute the Children's RPF..."
(Cohee, 1989). As background to the request for renewing the program, the
author discussed its history:

In 1976 when the Commodore [i.e., Hubbard] re-established the
Cadet Org, he also included the childrens [sic] RPF as apart [sic] of this ....
In 1986-87 when myself and [another person] put back in the advices concerning
the Cadet org, the re-instituting of the Childrens [sic] RPF was very
instrumental as one of the successful actions done which 10X'd [knocked out?]
the Cadet Org at that time .... The Childrens [sic] RPF was run per the FO's
[sic: Flag Orders, which are similar to Sea Org policy letters] on the
Childrens [sic] RPF (3434 series) ... (Cohee, 1989).

If this passage is accurate, then Hubbard himself established the Children's
RPF in 1976, and policies exist about its operation in the Flag Order
3434 Series dedicated to the RPF in general.

The one page letter or memo also provides insight into the lives of children
in and associated with the Cadet Organization. Cohee wrote that there were "several
Cadets and blown Cadets [i.e., runaways] who need to go to the children's RPF."
While most of the Cadets were improving and "producing," "a very
small percentage are enturbulative [i.e., disruptive] sources and are sabotaging
efforts to set the scene right." One boy (named in the text) was a special
problem, and:

he needs to be moved off everyone's lines [i.e., taken out of
the organization's daily operations] and put into the Children's [sic] RPF.
[He] recently took a razor blade and cut X's in his skin up and down both arms.
He is psychotic in PT [present time] and needs close supervision (Cohee, 1989).

In summary, some of the children in the Cadet Org were disruptive to the
point of running away, and one obviously troubled youth was self-mutilating.
Cohee's response, however, was to advise that the boy should receive close
supervision in the Children's RPF program, but never recommended professional
counseling or other professional assistance for him.

3. Television and Newspaper Accounts of Teenagers on the RPF

Additional evidence that a Children's RPF operated in or near Los Angeles
appeared in an unlikely source -- an August, 1989 news broadcast from television
station KOCO in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The news broadcast (of which I have a
video copy) was the first in a series on Scientology's Narconon program -- a
reputed drug rehabilitation program that had begun to operate on an Indian
reservation near Newkirk, Oklahoma. (Apparently the series ran in August 1989,
but the television station was unable to provide me with an exact date. The
announcer refers to events, however, that led me to conclude that it ran on
August 21.) In one segment, reporter Larry Blunt was on the sidewalk presumably
near the main Scientology complex in Los Angeles, having just completed an
interview with Scientology Linda [sic: Leisa] Goodman. The camera moved around
to a scene unfolding across the street and some distance away, and Blunt offered
the following commentary about what was captured on film:

Shortly after that exchange [with Goodman], a Scientology bus
loaded with young people dressed in black pulled up. They jogged into the
Scientology complex. A recent defector of [sic: from] Scientology told me they
were from the Church's Rehabilitation Project Force. They were found to be a
problem, and need an attitude adjustment (KOTO, 1989).

This film segment is over in a matter of seconds, but viewers are able to
count at least thirteen teens (two or more who appear to be females), all
wearing dark suits (with short sleeves and short pants). Of course, the dark
uniforms and the jogging requirement are standard for people assigned to the
RPF. While the Scientology organization may insist that adults in the RPF
program are there willingly, it is difficult to imagine this justification (or
excuse) applying to teens whose presumed ages would suggest that they should be
under the care of parents or guardians.

A final indicator that teens are RPF inmates comes form a 1984 newspaper
article published in the Clearwater Sun:

The young man -- by all appearances a teen-ager -- crouched on
the dark, narrow stairway as he scrubbed the sixth-floor landing in the former
Fort Harrison Hotel, the 'flag Land Base' headquarters of the Church of
Scientology.

'Are you in RPF?' queried a reporter.

'Sir?' he asked quietly, peering up from his work.

'Are you in RPF?'

'Yes sir I am.'

RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF), which, depending on who is
speaking, is either a businessman's approach to improving an employee's lagging
job performance or a form of punishment for Scientologists who are banished to
serve penance for their misdeeds and 'bat thoughts.'

Two others -- adult men who, like the youth, were dressed in blue shorts and
faded blue shirts -- worked two floors below, also cleaning the stairs. They
spoke not a word. Former Scientologists say that those in RPF 'are not to speak
unless spoken to.'

Those who have spent time in the RPF at the Fort Harrison tell a harrowing
tale of long hours at work -- as much as 100 hours a week -- and of months of
humiliation and mental abuse at the hands of other Scientologists.

But their vivid recollections of hard work and abuse contradict current
Church of Scientology statements that the RPF is 'an entirely voluntary' program
(Shelor, 1984: 1B).

Of course we cannot be certain of the young inmate's age, but it appears
that youth is no barrier to serving time in Scientology's forced labour and
re-indoctrination program

The Impact on Some Scientologists Who Saw
the RPF in Operation

Three very revealing accounts exist by people who were Scientologists and had
brief but disturbing encounters with RPF inmates. Their accounts provide some
indications of the cumulative impact the brainwashing and confinement efforts
had on the people who experienced them. One account was from former member Joe
Cisar, who:

stumbled into the RPF's RPF one time in the tunnels below the
Cedars complex in L.A. There w[ere] about a dozen people who apparently had been
sleeping in these tiny rooms. (There were a couple of blankets on the floor.)
Both men and women [were down there]. A man was cutting a woman's pant leg
with a knife while she was wearing the pants, and he had sliced her foot. Blood
was running down her ankle onto her foot and was puddling on the floor. She
looked up at me and gave me... what I would consider to be an insane smile and
said, 'I caused my foot to be in the way of his knife.' Two or three of the
people who were crouching and laying about on the floor looked up at me as if
it were some kind of wonderful joke. I backed out the way I came in. One of
Scientology's big promotion schemes is to tell people that they need to be
'at cause.' These people weren't at cause over anything[. T]hey had
degenerated back to the Middle Ages.

That's what I knew about the RPF when the Scientology ethics
officer told me to report down there for indefinite duty. I told her [that]
they could get me down there, but I'd put several of them in the hospital
first, and reminded her that I was a Viet Nam veteran. I was one of the few Sea
Org members who had managed to hang onto [his or her] car, and I left that night
(Cisar, 1997: 3).

One wonders what would have happened to Cisar had he not seen the conditions
of these inmates prior to his own RPF assignment.

A second glimpse into L.A.'s RPF comes in the story of former member Moira
Hutchinson, who did kitchen duty in order to finance her studies at the Cedars
complex. Consequently, she saw the RPF inmates come in for meals, about which
she wrote:

They would come in to eat after everyone else had left. I
found this deeply disturbing. Everyone was dressed in dark blue overalls[.
T]hey did not walk[;] they shuffled with their heads always bowed low, and no
one would utter a word.

I became pretty close with an officer in the ASHO [American Saint Hill
Organization] whose husband was on the RPF. I remember her telling me, very
excitedly, that she was to be allowed to share her half-hour meal breaks with
her husband. When she told me this, she had not seen him for a year
(Hutchinson, 1997: 6).

Although brief, this account is in keeping with what others have said about
the RPF program. She even claims that, under false circumstances, she was sent
to the East Grinstead facility in England and "was kept there for a whole
week so that I could complete a program very similar to the RPF where I had to
write down all of my transgressions committed against the church and carry out
menial physical duties" (Hutchinson, 1997: 2, see 5).

The third dramatic glimpse into RPF life came from Ann Bailey, who was
involved in moving Scientology into its newly acquired former hospital (called
the Cedars of Lebanon complex) in the summer of 1978. After a move that taxed
the levels of her physical endurance, she found herself assigned to guard the
secret, upper level theological (Operating Thetan or OT) documents that were in
a room without a door. They were in the former hospital's old morgue, and she
sat there for hours amidst the lingering "smell of death and chemicals and
dissection" (Bailey, n. d.: 60). Then:

[s]uddenly during the third hour I was aware of shadows in the
corridor beyond me. [T]hey were people. Slowly I realized that an entire
group of people lived and worked down there. I was so tired [that] it took me a
long time to realize who they were. Then it hit me. [They were t]he Cedars RPF.
They lived and worked down in this stinkhole. This was their Org. Then I really
found out what had happened to them. Filthy, tired, skeletons appeared before
me and started begging to see the OT folders. I thought I looked bad, but I
looked beautiful compared to them. They crowded around me pushing and shoving,
then the mood turned ugly. They started hitting each other to get into the
room behind me. I realized what had happened. They had been totally broken.
They were animals, not humans. I saw four of my friends, one a Class Nine OT,
fighting to get by me. They were punching each other in the face, pulling
hair, kicking. And way down in this cellar no one could hear them, no one
cared.

Someone suddenly hit me hard. I realized [that] they were
turning their anger on me[. T]hey would beat me up to get the folders. I
guess in periods of deep stress we all go a little insane--[s]urvival of the
fittest. From somewhere in my tired brain, strength came. I stood up with all
my TR's [i.e., Scientology communication drills] as in as they had ever been,
[and] all my training on control of groups came back. 'Friends,' I said.
'Believe me, I am your friend. By some strange fate I am not with you on the
RPF. But believe me if you don't get out of here right now, I know [that] you
will be punished. Go now before it's too late.' And they ran away into the
dark. When I sat down I was trembling all over. Because the real intent of my
message had been for them to get out of the hospital. Leave Cedars. But I don't
think any of them got the message (Bailey, n. d.: 61-62).

She was out of Sea Org in a week.

Conclusion: Brainwashing as a Practice in
Scientology and a Concept in Sociology

Taken together, the effect of these actions and pressures on people who
experience them can be profound. In environments where the Scientology
organization and its leadership attain totalistic control over RPF inmates,
researchers should expect to see a high degree of conformity among recent RPF
graduates. Certainly Monica Pignotti was correct when she concluded that "[t]he
lesson we were to learn on the RPF was to obey orders without question,
regardless of how we felt about it or who was giving the orders" (Pignotti,
1989: 23). Pat's conclusion was even crisper when she answered that the RPF's
purpose was "just re-indoctrination--just to break you down" (Kent
Interview with Pat, 1997b: 5). I go one step further and add that the final
intent of the RPF was (and is) to mold people into the closed ideology of
Scientology, where members identify their goals and their strategies with those
of the organization. Working in conjunction with forced confinement and various
forms of physical and social maltreatment, the intensive study of ideology
combines with obligatory confessions to severely weaken people's own moral
structures and the values that represent them. When successful, therefore,
Scientology's brainwashing leads people to accept the moral code and ideational
model of founder L. Ron Hubbard. As Gerry Armstrong realized, people on the RPF
necessarily "bec[a]me so compliant that they thanked their punishers for
the punishment, and wrote... success stor[ies] (to be used against them in the
future if they ever realize [that] they had been abused and sought redress for
that abuse)" (Armstrong in Young, 1997: 5). Indeed, writing such a story
was a prerequisite for completing the RPF program.

The implications of this study are modest but significant for sociology
(especially the sociology of religion) but much greater for contemporary
political and legal discussions. Social scientists need not alter their
definition of brainwashing, but should simply acknowledge that at least one
contemporary ideological organization utilizes brainwashing in an attempt to
retain its members. While this study cannot answer crucial questions about the
long term implications for people who have been through this particular
brainwashing program (compare Schein, 1961: 284), no doubt exists that
Scientology's founder gave considerable thought to brainwashing techniques and
imposed them on those of his followers whom he believed were harbouring thoughts
or performing actions against him or the organization. The "brainwashing"
term, therefore, has validity within some social science discourse.

BIOGRAPHY

STEPHEN A. KENT is a Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of
Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, specializing in the study of alternative
religions. He has published in a wide range of sociology and religious
journals, and has spoken before a German parliamentary commission about
Scientology's Rehabilitation Project Force program.